


Alcazar

by gardnerhill



Series: The Lighthouse Keepers [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, BAMF Mary Morstan, Community: holmes_minor, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Married Mary Morstan/John Watson, Victorian Attitudes, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: A lighthouse with spirit becomes a fortress.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the Holmes Minor October 2016 prompt: **Spirit!**

“You’re safe here, Alice.” My wife’s eyes were full of pain but her voice was steady.  
  
“I’m sorry, Mary.” Alice Barnes did not look up from where she sat on one of our dining-room chairs as I wrapped her sprained right wrist. Her head hung down and her voice was quieter than the clock’s ticking (it was nearly midnight). “I shouldn’t have come here.”  
  
“Nonsense,” I said gently, assaying the livid bruise on her cheekbone. “You need a doctor. You’ll stay overnight and–”  
  
A pounding at the door made all of us start. But a drunken man’s roar had Alice jerk her head up wildly, eyes (one blackened) staring at the door; she resembled a doe facing a hunter’s rifle.  
  
 “Bring her out!” the voice shouted. “Bring her out!”  
  
Mary held one hand out as I was about to rise, my fists clenching. “No, stay with her.” She turned and headed quickly upstairs.  
  
“Watson, damn you! Give me back my wife!”  
  
Alice was shaking. No tears came to those wounded eyes. She stood as if to head toward the door.  
  
Then from upstairs I heard another voice – the indignant, spirited tone of my fellow lighthouse-keeper. “Sir! Decent people are abed at this time of night!”  
  
Mr. Barnes roared even louder. “My wife is here, she comes running here every time! Give her up or I’ll have the law on you and your husband, slag!”  
  
Teeth clenched – at this horrific insult of my dear Mary and at realising that the law indeed sided with the man on this subject – I coaxed the shaking Alice back into her chair. “You’re safe here,” I repeated firmly.  
  
A sudden cry of terror from my wife froze my blood with fear.  
  
“Thief! Help! Stop, thief! Murder!”  
  
But it was the single shot – and a cry of pain from the man outside – that had me on my feet and racing up the stairs.  
  
The bedroom window was wide open – and I heard our neighbours now, shouting and frightened and angry, as they spilled out into the cold street. But the sight of Mary lowering my revolver made me gape.

“John, take Alice and hide in the basement,” she said firmly.  “I’ll handle this.”  
  
And she did. I listened to the conversations with the police outside as Mary transformed into a hysterical, frightened woman. When she mentioned how often she was alone in her house with her husband away with “that Mr. Holmes,” the neighbours confirmed the truth of that statement. She had had her rest disturbed by this shouting man, she’d feared for her life, and remembered her husband’s gun. No, Alice Barnes _wasn’t_ in her house, she hadn’t seen her friend all that day.  
  
“My clever girl,” I whispered, holding her shaking form when the police had dragged the howling leg-shot man away and everyone had gone back to bed (Alice slept in ours).  
  
“I didn’t even lie.” Mary’s laugh was wobbly. “It was just past midnight, so I truly hadn’t seen Alice that day!”


End file.
